It took more than a year for the nine militants who were killed by security forces during the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai to be laid to rest.

For a long time, government officials didn’t know what to do with the bodies, which were preserved in a morgue in a Mumbai hospital, according to the BBC.

But eventually, the bodies started to rot and, in January 2010, they were buried in secret in an unknown location on Indian soil. The news was shared with the media only months later, according to this Indian Express report.

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For Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving gunman of the attacks that killed 166 people four years ago, the decision was much faster.

Within hours of his execution on Wednesday morning, he was buried on the grounds of Pune’s Yerwada prison, Prithviraj Chavan, the chief minister of Maharashtra state, told reporters. Mr. Kasab was transferred from Mumbai to the nearby city of Pune two days earlier.

Where to bury terrorists has been an issue India has struggled with in the past. After the 26/11 attacks, as they became known, Muslims in Mumbai made it clear they did not want the nine terrorists, who were Pakistani citizens, buried in their graveyards. Pakistan didn’t want them either. For a while, New Delhi had tried – in vain – to get Islamabad to accept the bodies of the nine terrorists, as it sought to get Pakistan to accept some responsibility for the terrorist attacks.

India tried to give Pakistan the option of reclaiming the body of Mr. Kasab but Indian officials say Islamabad was unresponsive. Ahead of the burial, Indian Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said the government tried to inform Pakistan about the execution with a letter. “They refused to accept the letter, so we informed them also via fax,” Mr. Shinde said during a press conference on Wednesday morning. He said that Pakistani officials had not “demanded the body of Kasab.”

A spokesman for Pakistan’s High Commission declined comment.

Pakistan was never likely to accept Mr. Kasab’s body. Under pressure from New Delhi, Islamabad only recognized him as a Pakistani citizen in January 2009.

Burying Mr. Kasab in a prison is a way of preventing his burial ground from attracting interest while respecting Islamic traditions.

“If burial happens in a prison, that’s OK,” says Zafarul-Islam Khan, the president of the All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat, a non-political Delhi-based organization.

Mr. Khan compared Mr. Kasab’s burial with that of Osama bin Laden, which he described as “unacceptable.” In May 2011, within 24 hours of his killing by a U.S. Navy SEALS team , Bin Laden was buried at sea, something Mr. Khan says Muslims should avoid unless, say, someone dies on a ship far from the shore. At the time, Saudi Arabia, bin Laden’s country of origin, declined to accept the body.

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